More High School Memories

DSP Blog Prompt 6/29/07:
What were your high school colors? Team names? Clubs you belong too? Did you graduate? What do you remember most about your graduation day?

Highschool colors: Red, white and grey
Team Names: Greyhounds
Clubs you belonged to? Art Club, Choir
Graduate? Nope!
What do you remember most about your graduation day?
That Kameron was right at a year old, and that I had four weeks left before graduation. I had made A's and B's all year long. Kameron had caught a really BAD case of the chicken pox. We are talking pox bigger than a quarter, fevers of 104 degrees that sent my 17 year old self into a PANIC. He still carries some of those scars, and I learned that I had every right to be scared of that kid's fevers. He's no joke when it comes to a fever, but that's another story in itself. Anyway, I wasn't about to leave the kid with a sitter--he was too sick. The doctor wrote me out an excuse from school to stay home with him for two weeks until he got out of the woods. I could now collect all my schoolwork, keep my grade average up, and graduate, and be home with my sick child.
I took the doctors excuse in and the principal would not accept it because *I* was not sick. He didn't care how sick my child was. A heated argument ensued between us. I was to report to school unless I got the pox myself or I would not graduate. In the nastiest way possible I let him know just what I thought of his decision and stormed out. I still feel no better about him today. If I knew then what I know now, I'd probably slapped a lawsuit on that school. I did not graduate--I stayed home with my baby. Kameron recovered fine and I went back and got a GED. So, what I remember most about my graduation day is that I was at home in the living room playing with a laughing, bouncing, healthy baby boy, instead of standing in line in a cap and gown waiting to get a piece of paper that I could have lost a baby over.

To this day I do not regret my decision.

Saturday Night Live: Signature Americana

I had time to throw together a July 4 kit before the kids and their social lives took over....(Happy Birthday Rowan & Nicole!!)

Saturday Night Live: Template

At DSP's Saturday Night Live, our kit-making group is growing by leaps and bounds. This month, I suggested two different color schemes, and someone else suggested a totally new scheme since our original July 4 color scheme closely mimiced what they had last year. So, we ended up keeping our original red-white-blue scheme and added this bright Fiesta scheme. I was soooo psyched to do something with these colors, but my kids took my hand and RUN with me the whole month, so all I ended up with was this lousy template. Oh well, maybe later!!!

Steve and ... Me

The girls took this picture of us after their 5th grade gradtuation ceremony. I have lots of great photos to scrap from that day but the Muse hasn't been visiting me much lately. I think this one came out alright, though, and even if he does look like I was stepping on his toe, I wasn't...he was actually happy. He just won't smile for pictures!!!

High School Friends

DSP Blog Prompt:
Did you have a lot of friends in high school or just one or two very close friends? What did you and your friends do for fun? Are you still in contact with any of them?

I would think of myself as anti social on one hand, but, then again, I had a huge amount of friends. They just weren't your cookie cutter high school kids, and we didn't engage in cookie cutter high school activities. I would say that we played TOO hard. A lot of us never recovered from it.

We skipped school. Of course, we'd be hungry, so we'd crash our friend Shawn's house and guess who got to cook breakfast, cause they were the only one who could cook a from-scratch breakfast? Moi. So I taught the boys how to make bisciuts from scratch. We were pretending to be in Home Ec! We were learning.....just not where and what we were supposed to at 9 am. Who wants Algebra III at 9 am when you can have a biscuit and someone's mom's beer???? Or, how about...um...geography. We'd explore the terrain on three wheelers. Unfortunately we wrecked and I broke my nose. Then we wrecked again and run the thing off in the river. (Robin's dad was SO mad at us!!!)

We'd push the bar....... Jump railroad tracks, drag race, play 'chicken' with trains, explore haunted houses, drink too much, drive too fast. Fight too hard. Sleep too late. Jam too loud (all the boys played electric guitar or drums). Sneak out at night, hitch a ride into town, meet up with buds and be off on the next adventure. We played hide and seek in graveyards. Skinnydipping? Too lame!! (but we did it anyway) Midnight motorcycle rides, bonfires, rock concerts, keg parties, seances.....Life was an endless cup of this robust, effervescent, intoxicating brew, and we drank deeply of it.

We were 80's babies......it was sex, drugs and rock n roll all the way. Pink Floyd was old school, and to be revered, so it blared from the stereo systems of Camaros, Z-28's and Iroc Z's. We made every rock concert we could afford, even if we had to skip or miss school or face the wrath of a parent. Was two weeks of house arrest an endurable punishment for a trip to the big city, to get a front row seat at a Motley Crue concert...to have Vince Neil grab your hand and see Tommy Lee play his drums naked? You bet. (If you got desperate, just sneak out. ) Lita Ford was the new Stevie Nicks and all the girls had wild platinum blonde hair just like her. We sported black concert T-shirts, ripped jeans, and black bangles. Butterfly knives were nestled in our black leather boots decorated with chains, and we knew how to use them.

Live life in the fast lane, and you crash and burn. A few of us actually graduated, and went on to have a healthy, happy adult life. Quite a bit more than I would have expected, looking back now. Some of us were forced to straighten up (when babies were on the way). Some of us didn't make it to see 18, and even more didn't make it to see the first wrinkle line our faces before we were lain in the grave. Still more succumbed to the evils of addiction in one form or another, others landed in jail for a long, long time.

A lot of those friends are still very dear to me and we still get together from time to time, although the social gatherings have tamed down considerably. Some of them I have distanced myself from in the greater insterest of preserving what I have become. I can't believe we even made it through a month of that kind of lifestyle. I wouldn't trade my memories for anything but I wouldn't go back for a million dollars, either.

And I cry for the ones I have lost.

Teenagerhood

DSP Blog Prompt: Moving on in life, as a teenager what do you feel were your greatest achievements and worse mistakes? Have these achievements and/or mistakes helped to make you a better person? Or did they hinder you as you proceeded into adulthood?

Wow....I didn't achieve much as a teen. I made lots of mistakes, actually. I wasn't into any high school clubs or groups. I was misunderstood and artsy, and fell into the wrong crowd. What most people would say is the worst mistake a teenager could make ended up being my greatest accomplishment. I ended up pregnant at 16. Unlike a lot of other teenage girls who handed their baby off to someone else to raise, though, while they go finish growing up, I kept my kid, and raised him just as I am raising them all today. I was heading down a road to certain destruction....one I have seen many of my friends from that time in my life follow. I grew up, met my challenge and responsibility head-on, and today, I have a good, strong, well-loved, intelligent son that I am proud of. I could have achieved similar results without learning things the hard way...but, also, I look around and alot of other people my age who never had things rough, and think, "Now how would they handle something really, really tough?" I am glad that I also became a stronger person from all my trials and tribulations.

So, honestly, even with all the mistakes I made, I wouldn't change a thing.

My Childhood Pets

DSP Blog Prompt: As a child did you have any exotic (i.e. those not indigenous to your area) or unusual pets? If not, did you have any pets at all? What kind? Did you give them standard pet names or come up with unusual and unique names?


Hm. No. But snakes as pets were fashionable in our household (at least until Mom come home) when I was a kid. Dad loved snakes. And in keeping with his I-wish-I'd-had-a-little-boy-but-you'll-do-fine attitude towards having a girl, he taught me not to be afraid of snakes. He did this by catching a little grass snake, tying a string around it's neck, and giving it to me. Then after I learned I could drag it about and it wouldn't eat me, he taught me how to pick it up. He taught me how to get bit. He taught me how to tell if it was piosonous or not. Since he passed away before I was old enough to handle poisonous snakes, I am still leery of those kind and won't pick them up.

My mom was horridly, horridly afraid of snakes, so this education only existed in her absence. My sister tells me that one day I had picked up a Tonka truck out of my sandbox (no Barbies for me, I'm telling you, I was sposed to have been a boy) and a snake crawled out of it and up my arm. She said that I just picked it up (the right way) and set it off in the gress, while my mother had coniption fits.

There were racoons, in the farmhouse, great things when they are babies. Horrid as they get older....the older they get....the meaner they get. And the baby fawn caught in the combine one year. Mom would get really mad if I drug home a coyote baby from the fields. The only thing I was really allowed by Mom to have was cats.

One of these days, I'm going to be Cleopatra for Halloween, down to a live snake around my neck.

Childhood Collections

DSP Blog Prompt: Did you collect anything as a child? Why or why not? What was the significance of your collection and where did you procure it? Do you still have any or all of the collection now?


I wasn't much of a collector as a kid, but I got into collectibles a bit as I have grown older. I had a mediocre stamp collection that my grandfather helped me build as a child. It stemmed from the stamp collection my father left behind when he passed away. I kept it for years and year, but when I moved out, I left it with Mom, and I guess she spring cleaned one year and got rid of it. Amazing how you can totally forget something that was so importangt to you, then something will make you remember it. And you are left with....'wow. I'm an idiot. I'd give my left eyetooth to have that back.'

As I got older I started to collect dragons, because it seemed like an odd thing to collect, and something nobody would have much of. Then, I branched out to wizards, castles, faeries, etc. Soon dragons and fantasy figurines were everywhere so it became not-so-interesting anymore. Kameron decided he wanted the dragon collection, so I passed it to him, but he has pretty much outgrown it as well.

Now my house is littered with faeries. My computers are sprinkled with faeries, and my cubicle at work is spilling over with printed digital scrapbook pages and faerie statues.

One other thing I think it is safe to say that I collect is sewing fabric. I have boxes and boxes of fabric that I am going to sew something out of....

one of these days......

Family Field Trip: The Graveyard

Once, when I was about 9 years old, my mom and my sister took me to this really old graveyard that was rich with old stories, history, etc etc. We went in the late afternoon, and I can remember my sister joking as we drove in, "Remember, Mom, we have to make it out by dusk, they lock the gates, you know. Don't wanna get locked in."

We got locked in.

We got out, (by, um, driving thru someone's yard, hope they didn't get mad) and unfortunately the wonderful experience of being locked in a graveyard after my mom and sister had just got through telling me about 100 ghost stories about it, well, kind of overshadowed the ghost stories thierselves.

This is a story my kids love to hear. So, since the twins are about 12 now, sis and I decided it was high time the girls got to experience what some might call a sick and twisted family tradition, and, what sis and I call.........a history lesson!



Were the girls traumatized? After three and a half hours in the graveyard, (no, we didn't get locked in this time) we adults suggested some ice cream and then home. Their prompt response was:

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"
"Let's go see that one! We haven't seen that one!!! Or that one.....Mommy Aunt Janet pllllllleeeaaaaaase...........Can't we just go see a FEW more???"

So, what were some of the stories we told them?


About this lady, who died at 23, grieved to death at the loss of her lover. The story is that her gravesite statue (which has long since been vandalized, only half the statue remains) would cry tears of blood, and you can still to this day see bloodstains in the folds of the skirt. (I remember the stain being very prominent, when I was little, but today is no more than a faint line of rust color that you really have to look for.)



And about this grave marker, under which, if you sit, at night, the angel will drop cement raspberries onto your head.


And when this man died, his dog laid on his grave until it grieved itself to death. A statue of the dog was placed at the foot of the plot to honor him, but the head of the dog has since been taken off by vandals.

They got to experience the sadness of the death of a child, see whole family plots, and military graves, all formed in their small, neat and orderly rows, dating back to the Spanish-American War. They marveled at how our tributes in the form of the gravemarkers have changed over the years----from whole families buried together in mausoleums or large plots of ornate stones encased in wrought iron fences, to the open, slick, plain-fonted, simple stones of today, with no more than two or three people in an area bearing the same name.

And, hopefully, learned some valuable lessons in the meantime...